Lavarock, Your power calculations seem accurate. But you forgot the largest cost of leaving electrical devices running all the time: the replacement cost. That is exactly what the Chinese producers want you to do, forget about the early replacement for all that running 24-hours-a-day stuff. I have taken apart lots of Chinese-made appliances and electronic equipment over the years. ALL of it has hidden “traps” that cause the device to fail earlier than expected. Electric motors have tiny fuse links taped to the winding coils, so that when the motor is used with a heavy load for a short period, the fuse opens, making the appliance useless. Chinese-made drones have built-in programs that cause them, during the 3rd use, to fly away and never be seen again. Appliances with valves have a solenoid (electromagnetic relay) with coil wires pulled so tight that the normal heating and cooling causes the tiny wires to break, making the appliance useless. The goal is to sell you 3 appliances in the same period where one should have done the job. Yet we keep buying the stuff because it is cheaper than we can make here!
You indeed appear to be different than most people i know.
But I like living in an environment where I don’t have to get out of bed a couple of times a night to turn on or turn off my HVAC system or set my non-electrical mechanical alarm clock to plug in my EV charger at 1:00 AM because that’s when the power is cheapest and I like sleeping with the knowledge that my interconnected smoke/fire/CO detectors will wake me in case of a problem.
Don’t you care that your gas stove enlarges your carbon footprint?
Do you power down your cell phone between calls?
I guess we can expect all those Chinese EVs to fail in a year or two… 
I disagree. I have seen too many devices fail upon powerup; computers, incandescant lights, LEDs.
My Windows 7 computers are still running (on UPS by the way). My neighbor keeps losing routers because of power fluxuations. Mine are fine (same model).
I agree that devices with all sorts of coumpuers and electronics in them are more prone to failure. I like microwaves, dishwashers and washing machines with simple controls. My dishwasher has push buttons for cyctems, but I cannot just turn a knob to get extra drying time. I have to have it actually start to spray water than then hit cancel to get it to drain, etc. MY Sister has a washing machine with a lid lock. If I need to put something in after it has started (and it takes forever to tell how much water it needs because it auttomatically weighs the load I think) then I have to unplug it to free up the lock, add the item and start again. Except that the machine now has water in it at the beginning of a cycle.
So, yes all these electronics that are supposed to make life easier, just add to the shortened length of the product. I still say that leaving them on AND having them protected from power issues is the best thing to do. Leaving an item turned on all the time openes it up for power surges and noise, etc. By conditioning the power you eliminate that issue both during the extended time you leave it on, but also during the time you normally use the product. Thus leave it on but condition the power.
Also, the constant heating and cooling cycles of electronics is a major issue. As power is drawn the unit heats up and things expand. Then when the device is turned off, the components retract. This is why some memory cards get intermittent. They expand a bit and eventually start moving out of their sockets. “Many wire connection problems are no one’s fault but are simply the result of time. Wires are under a constant cycle of heating and cooling, expansion and contraction. Every time a switch is used or appliances are plugged in, and the natural result of all this usage is that wire connections can loosen over time.”
Lavarock,
You made some valid points. Heating and cooling of electronic device does shorten lifetimes. The question comes down to the degree versus the added deterioration for the extra running time when the device is not being used. I have never had a computer to fail. I always have turned them OFF when not in use. Once a year, I take them outside, remove the cover, and blow the dust out using compressed air. The CPU chips are literally coated in dust, as are the cooling fans and circuit boards. I imagine that this cleaning adds a lot to the lifes. Also, with an OFF switch that disconnects the power line, that is a much better surge arrestor than any you can buy. Of course it only works when the power is OFF. Because I only use my main computer maybe 2 or 3 hours a day, then most of the time it is disconnected and so “protected” from power fluctuations and lightening strikes on the power line. This way I don’t have to worry about how functional any surge arrestors still are, after several lightening strikes.
H200h,
I do not use a cell phone, normally. I have one, but only use it when I travel out of town. Yes, I do turn it off when not in use. Why leave it running and automatically shorten its life? I have the same old flip-top cell phone that I have owned for years. For most calls, I rely on my 1970-model Bell telephone desk phone that is hard-wired to a phone jack. That phone is one of the old ones supplied originally by the phone company. It is built to last forever and works as well as it did 50 years ago.
H200h,
I don’t think my gas range is going to add anything to the carbon in the atmosphere. I happen to believe that the greatest contributors to the carbon dioxide in the air is all the volcanoes around the world, which have been spewing out tons of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide for millions of years. The contribution from humans is small and relatively recent. The carbon is not what is heating up our world. It is the extra heat that the Sun is sending to the Earth. Each year that amount of heat grows larger, and it is growing at a faster rate each year. Due to the nuclear fusion reactions in the Sun, the diameter of the Sun expands each year, and a larger sun sends more radiation to Earth, heating up our climate. Of course the “environmentalists” hope that you do not ever find out about that little fact from your 6th grade science class about the Solar System!
I don’t have any experience with Chineses EV batteries. Because the same Communist government is in charge of the factories that builds these batteries, I would guess that they have the same design parameters as all the other Chinese-made products that I have taken apart and studied. What I have seen is NOT products designed to maximize their lifetime, but instead designed to fail after the short warranty has expired. Then it becomes a good boat anchor—maybe not even that!
I’m beginning to understand where you are coming from. 
I see, it’s becoming clear now!.. 
… it’s the SUN’s fault!
Reality Check: Your reasoning that because our sun is growing larger and hotter that it is the cause of our planet’s current sudden surge of global temperature is seriously flawed… to the point of being insignificant.
Humans have inhabited earth for around 300,000 years. Stars like our sun have a life of 9 or 10 billion years. Our sun is about halfway through it’s life cycle, and has another 4,500,000,000 years to go and about another 1,000,000,000 years before it enters a rapid growth stage that will last about 5,000,000 years and obliterate our solar system as we know it.
Right now our sun is getting hotter… but to say it will have any significance in the grand scheme of things relating to our current climate is just wrong. The sun’s radiance will increase about 1% every 100 million years. That’s 1,000,000 human generations from now!
Seems to me that we can stand 1/2 of one degree more heat from the sun over the next 50 million years. I say we wait maybe a half a million generations before we start worrying about that, we have bigger fish to fry in this current century.
True… EV’s are not the total answer, nor are they the final answer.
Also true… EVs are one step closer to the solution than ICE cars are.
Yes, you got all the details about the Sun correct. But then you ignore the results. You pretend that the extra heat WILL NOT CAUSE any effect until the end of our Sun’s life! That is the NASA dogma, but then NASA always spews the Government’s prooganda. That is like saying I have an Electric Vehicle, and the deterioration of the battery pack will not have any effect on the mileage until the very end of the battery pack life (when it becomes completely useless). No, it is all a matter of DEGREES. A small increase in heat from the Sun each year, over millions of years, does eventually add up! The question is: At what age in the life of the Sun (we are at the half-way point already), will the Earth become uninhabitable? I am willing to bet that it will be a LOT sooner than you think! That extra heat does not have to be so hot that trees burn up, or the air disappears. But only hot enough to prevent food from growing, cause water supplies to dry up, keep air conditioners from being able to cool houses, and so on.
It appears that you are having difficulty understanding basic math functions and linear vs non-linear progression and digression. Let me help you…
When we look at the life of an EV battery we are looking at a 10-to-20-year period of time and a degradation of power from a 250-mile range to maybe 150-mile range. That is a linear reduction of power from 100% to 50% spread fairly evenly over 120 to 240 months.
The Sun has increased in size by around 20% since its formation around 4.5 billion years ago. So each year the sun increases in size 0.00000000004444%, and the sun is presently 865,370 mi in diameter, (a 432,685 mi radius.) Presently the earth’s distance from the sun averages about 93 million miles.
So if you calculate the rate of the sun’s yearly growth it comes out to .0041292 miles in diameter, (0.0020646 radius.) A nautical mile is 2,000 yards long. If you multiply .0020645 times 2,000 yards you get 8.3 yds or 12.4 feet.
I suggest to you that reducing the distance to the sun by 12.4 feet per year when our orbit around the sun normally takes us from 91.4 million miles to 94.5 million miles from the sun will not make a discernable difference in human terms for a long, long time. Like maybe at least a couple of thousand human lifetimes.
I personally will not lose any sleep over that eventuality.
So using YOUR numbers, how much EXTRA heat is the Sun sending to the Earth each day, than it did 4.5 BILLION years ago? How long will it be before those millions of extra BTUs cause a change in our environment? Oh, I forgot. you said that extra heat is just disappearing and will NEVER have ANY effect, until 4.5 billion more years when the Earth will be consumed by the Sun? Is that your contention?
In terms of how the sun’s life cycle affects life on earth today and in the foreseeable future, your mental meanderings concerning what happened 4.5 billion years ago makes no sense. What is pertinent to the discussion is what is going on now based on what we know about the conditions on earth since life in general and humans specifically appeared on earth.
I’ve already shown you, that the changes in the sun’s size, as it relates to the temperature on earth within the next million human lifetimes or so is essentially nonexistent. It’s a silly and irrelevant argument.
Come’on we’re talking about the sun’s surface being 12 feet closer a year! When the earth’s natural orbit varies as much as 3,000,000 miles a year? The logical fallacy in your thinking appears to be that you are comparing the timeframe of over million human lifetimes and pretending that it will have a significant impact in one or two lifetimes. It is, in the context of the next two hundred years, insignificant.
No, it is not, and has never, been my contention. That premise was hatched between your ears.
I said:
Are we nearing the EV Tipping Point? This guy thinks so.
But good for him a little publicity did help out.
There are horror stories on every model of car, but EV stories seem to be more horrible. I once had a Dodge Caravan with a 100,000 mile warranty. The transmission failed at—101,200. Yes, 1200 miles beyond warranty.
Spent 2 or 3 thousand to fix it----and then sold it.
As someone that has owned BEVs since 2015…this is definitely one area where improvement is needed. I have not yet had to replace a battery, but there is no doubt it is expensive. We need to get to the point where battery packs are standardized and modular to help drive down the costs. There needs to be a standard form factor such that individual bad cells can be replaced or individual batteries can be replaced. Until that time…having to replace an entire pack is not a feasible option for owners.
So true, but so very difficult. I retired from the airlines and then a long career in light rail transit. Getting airlines to agree on aircraft standardization was impossible and rail was even worse. Each system demanded their own tweaks.
I am certain EV makers would be the same.
While Y’all are debating solar, keep in mind we may not last until those millions of years in the future.
The 2022 eruption in Tonga:
A team of international scientists found ozone concentrations in the stratosphere (10 to 25 miles high) decreased by as much as 30 percent in spots shortly after the eruption. Overall, they measured concentrations depleted by around 5 percent across the Indian and Pacific Ocean two weeks following the eruption. (
Overall, 46 volcanoes were in continuing eruption status as of 11 October 2023. An eruption marked as “continuing” does not always mean persistent daily activity, but indicates at least intermittent eruptive events without a break of 3 months or more. There are typically 40-50 continuing eruptions, and out of those generally around 20 will be actively erupting on any particular day (though we do not keep detailed statistics on daily activity). (Global Volcanism Program | Current Eruptions)
Then again:
In 2000, a powerful “X-Class” solar flare slammed the Earth in an event known by solar scientists as Bastille Day. The flare reduced the amount of protective ozone in the upper atmosphere, the mesosphere, by 30 per cent. (In 2000, a powerful “X-Class” solar flare slammed the Earth in an event known by solar scientists as Bastille Day. The flare reduced the amount of protective ozone in the upper atmosphere, the mesosphere, by 30 per cent.)
These are somewhat temporary. Here is hope:
In fact, much of the ozone layer is expected to recover to 1980 levels by 2040, though the ozone layer over Antarctica is expected to recover to 1980 levels by around 2066. (NPR)